From: "Macdonald Stainsby" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 13:15:36 -0700
Subject: [L-I] Kostunica, Milosevic and the Hague
The Globe and Mail April 4,
2001
Defiant Kostunica lashes out at West's 'selective justice'
Despite President's rhetoric, analysts expect Milosevic will be
sent to The Hague
By Geoffrey York
BELGRADE -- Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica is vowing that he
will not bow to Western "blackmail" by sending Slobodan Milosevic to a
war-crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The threat of a cutoff of Western financial assistance will not
persuade
Belgrade to transfer the deposed former president to The Hague to face
charges of crimes against humanity, Mr. Kostunica said.
His impoverished country will refuse to sell its "national dignity"
for "a
handful of dollars," the President said yesterday at his first press
conference since Mr. Milosevic's arrest and imprisonment on the
weekend.
"We are ready to co-operate, but co-operating does not mean
accepting everything," he said.
Mr. Kostunica criticized the war-crimes tribunal for practising
"selective justice" by failing to prosecute the top leaders of other Balkan
nations -- or the leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which
launched a massive bombing campaign against Yugoslavia during the
Kosovo war in 1999.
"We need a much more impartial court," he commented yesterday.
He also scoffed at a U.S. decision on Monday to go ahead with the
second half of a $100-million aid package, which could have been
terminated if U.S. officials had decided that Yugoslavia was failing to co-
operate with the tribunal.
The aid is "extremely small" in comparison to the estimated
$30-billion
worth of damage inflicted on Yugoslavia by the bombing, he said.
"The international community and the United States owe much more
to us than we owe to them," he said.
Despite the President's defiant rhetoric, many analysts in Belgrade
are convinced that Yugoslavia will eventually agree to send Mr. Milosevic
to The Hague -- perhaps in about six months, when a domestic court has
delivered its verdict on corruption charges against him.
Although Mr. Kostunica heads the Yugoslav federation, the justice
system is largely in the hands of the Serbian republic (which, with
Montenegro, makes up the federation). And Serbian officials are much
less willing to protect Mr. Milosevic from the war-crimes tribunal.
Even Mr. Kostunica did not completely exclude the possibility that
he
could reach a compromise with the tribunal, as long as the domestic trial
is given priority.
Meanwhile, there was more bad news for Mr. Milosevic yesterday. His
appeal against his detention was rejected by a Belgrade court. And the
Serbian Interior Minister, Dusan Mihajlovic, said the former leader could
be found guilty of "serious crimes" punishable by death.
Mr. Milosevic's arrest has provoked conflicts within the reformist
coalition that toppled him last October. On one side is Mr. Kostunica and
the federal armed forces, which he controls.
On the other side is the Serbian government, which controls the
police
force that arrested Mr. Milosevic after a bungled raid and a 36-hour
standoff at his villa.
Mr. Kostunica said yesterday that the police operation was clumsy
and confused. The president rejected Serbian allegations that some army
officers obstructed the police operation.
But a senior Serbian official, Cedomir Jovanovic, said the officers
had
acted immorally by allowing Milosevic loyalists to smuggle weapons into
the former president's villa.
The loyalists used the weapons to repel the first police raid
Saturday
morning.
Mr. Jovanovic was the main government negotiator in the weekend
drama, spending 10 hours in talks with the former president to negotiate
his surrender.
In the first detailed insider's account of the 36-hour standoff, Mr.
Jovanovic said yesterday that he feared a bloodbath that could have
killed up to 30 people.
He said the villa, once owned by former dictator Josip Broz (Marshal
Tito), is a "fortress," with bulletproof windows and a labyrinth of tunnels
70
metres underground.
During most of the negotiations, Mr. Milosevic was ready to fight to
the death. But at the last minute he agreed to surrender, perhaps
because he had expected a massive crowd of hundreds of thousands of
supporters, which never materialized, Mr. Jovanovic said.
Despite his criticism of the police operation, Mr. Kostunica said he
was pleased that it ended without bloodshed. "March 31 was the second
act of Serbia's peaceful revolution."
-------------------------------------------
Macdonald Stainsby
Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion.
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--Bertholt Brecht
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